That is very likely the one reason, which means that although Google needs Mozilla to stay afloat for their "See, your honor, we're not a monopoly!" ridiculous argument, they still have a huge leverage to literally force Mozilla to keep Firefox behind.
I wonder if everyone calling Firefox as "Google Firefox" could somehow compromise that narrative.
> they still have a huge leverage to literally force Mozilla to keep Firefox behind.
I wonder if that was part of the reason Mozilla chose to lay off the entire R&D team that was working on their next-generation browser engine that would solve some pretty long-standing issues?
Anyway, building a browser is hard and expensive work, and it was probably a mistake to move away from getting one in a box at Best Buy for $50.
I wonder if everyone calling Firefox as "Google Firefox" could somehow compromise that narrative.